On Sep 23, 2005, at 8:53 AM, Pål Jensen wrote:
There is no revenue for supporting obsolete equipment made 30 years
ago. They make 120 000 DSLR's a year. If the feature cost $10 a
body then its 1 200 000 out of the window.
BTW $10 of parts+labour in the factory becomes $40 or $50 by the time
it's sitting in the shop window. At Pentax's end, by the time you
add design, tooling and prototyping costs, plus whatever compromises
and extra product testing are required, you can probably add another
$1.2M up front, before the product is even released onto the market.
A manufacturer's margin tends to be razor-thin at the best of times
so they won't be willing to add cost unless it's going to generate a
significant amount of extra sales. Hence the use of that wonderful
document, the business case*.
It really is no fun being a manufacturer these days.
Cheers,
- Dave
* Yes I've had my experiences with those... seeing them ignored for
pet projects or political/funding reasons, seeing them written after-
the-fact to justify a decision that's already been made, etc...
"Dilbert" is a documentary, you know ;)
